More than 860,000 Russian soldiers killed or injured three years since invasion

Russia has not updated its official war casualty figures since September 2022, when it claimed that just under 6,000 of its soldiers had died. Now, the latest number of Russian military losses – both killed and injured – has surpassed 860,000, according to estimates shared by the UK Ministry of Defence.

The invasion that was supposed to last a few days has now stretched into its fourth year, and the numbers paint a grim picture for Russia. True to his form, for Vladimir Putin it remains business as usual as more and more people are drafted and sent to the frontline.

Ukraine, with its smaller population and military, has held the line far longer than the Kremlin expected – at the cost of staggering Russian losses that the government has so far refused to acknowledge. Tracking military losses on the frontline is difficult without official figures from the Kremlin.

An update by the UK MoD rounded up the number to more than 860,000, while a report from Ukraine was a little more precise, putting it at 868,230. This number includes 1,050 casualties Russian forces suffered just in the last 24 hours. Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet, has confirmed the names of 95,000 soldiers killed in the war.

By the end of 2024, as many as 165,000 troops are believed to have died, but almost a half of their identities remain unconfirmed. Investigators note that the actual figures are likely significantly higher, as their verified information comes from public sources such as obituaries, posts by relatives, regional media reports, and statements from local authorities.

It is this surge in losses that has prompted the Kremlin to seek the help of North Korea’s regime and hire contract soldiers from African nations. Idite Lesom, a network created in the first wave of the mobilisation, has helped more than 5,706 Russian deserters in the last three years.

In 2023, the organisation assisted 1,570 people, then followed by 3,881 in 2024. Already 255 deserters in January 2025. Idite Lesom estimates that by the end of the year the number of deserters may again exceed 4,000. Alongside the human toll on the frontline, Russia has also hemorrhaged hundreds of fighter jets and thousands of armoured vehicles.

Figures from a Ukrainian report released today show that altogether, as many as 10,177 tanks, 21,157 armored fighting vehicles, 38,444 vehicles and fuel tanks, 23,626 artillery systems, 1,299 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,081 air defense systems, 370 airplanes, 331 helicopters and 26,645 drones have been destroyed.

Separately, the UK MoD said Russia had lost 3,750 battle tanks, and 8,400 armored vehicles, number that are much lower to what Ukraine released. This has turned parts of Ukraine, where combat has raged for four years now, into a graveyard for what was once the world’s second most powerful army.

The Kremlin has also lost 28 ships and boats, and one submarine as the Ukrainian forces targeted Putin’s naval fleet. Today, Sir Keir Starmer has promised sweeping sanctions to heap pressure on Russia and get Putin ‘not just to talk, but to make concessions’.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. In remarks to a gathering of Ukraine’s allies, he said the new package will go after Russia’s so-called shadow fleet as well as companies in China and elsewhere providing Russia with military components.

‘We must keep dialling up the economic pressure to get Putin to a point where he is ready not just to talk, but to make concessions,’ the PM said in a remote address to the meeting in Kyiv. The Home Office has announced a move to widen travel sanctions for Kremlin-linked elites.

Local and federal politicians as well as managers or directors of large Russian companies will face exclusion from the UK under the rules, which come on top of existing travel bans on high-profile business figures such as former Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.

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